141 A.2d 249 | Conn. Super. Ct. | 1958
The plaintiff has brought suit to recover damages for personal injuries allegedly sustained through the negligence of the state in maintaining a defective pump handle in a public park. The action is based on Special Acts 1957, No. 489, entitled "An Act Authorizing Marie Garrett to Sue the State." 28 Spec. Laws 559. So far as now material, the act provides: "Permission is granted to Marie Garrett of Hartford to bring an action against the state to recover damages alleged to have been caused by reason of a defective pump handle at Stratton Brook State Park in Simsbury."
In its answer the state pleads, as a second special defense, that the special act is unconstitutional in that it violates article first, § 1, and article
The plaintiff bases its first reason of demurrer onSanger v. Bridgeport,
Furthermore, the plaintiff relies, for this ground of demurrer, upon the sentence lifted from the opinion in the Sanger case, supra, 189, that "[t]he State may grant privileges to specified individuals without violating any constitutional principle in cases where sufficient reason exists." If this statement is to save the plaintiff's case it can only do so upon a showing that this is a case "where sufficient reason exists." If that condition is to be made to appear, it could only be as the result of a trial. It cannot be found as a matter of law on demurrer. Consequently, the first ground of demurrer must also be found insufficient.
What has been said sufficiently disposes of the demurrer. Further reasons exist, however, for permitting the defense in this case.
No decision in this state has been cited or discovered which furnishes a controlling precedent for *499
the constitutional issue presented by the defense. A South Carolina case, Sandel v. State,
The Connecticut case most nearly approximating the present case is Tolisano v. State,
The Norwich Gas Electric Co. case, while it uses (p. 572) the sometimes quoted language "[s]tates, as well as individuals, can recognize merely honorary obligations," used that language in a context not applicable to the present case. The court was there considering the constitutionality of an act which *500
provided the procedure for the compulsory purchase by municipalities of the plants of private utility companies in cases where the municipality was undertaking the utility business. The decision was premised upon the fact that the statute under consideration applied equally to all municipalities and to all private corporations in a like situation. Such a statute bears no similarity to the statute involved in the present case, which confers on a specified individual, and no others, the right to sue the state. The quoted language from the Norwich case, moreover, was used in connection with the fact that both parties there involved were artificial creatures of the state and the purpose of the legislation was to cause no loss to previously chartered private corporations by reason of later allowing municipal corporations to exercise the same functions. The case is authority only for the proposition that the equal protection of the laws does not prevent classification so long as it is reasonable, not arbitrary, and rests on a distinction having a fair and substantial relation to the object sought to be accomplished. State
v. Hurliman,
Both the Tolisano and Norwich cases, supra, recognize the proposition that "[t]he General Assembly, within the broad powers granted to it by the constitution, may recognize obligations resting on equitable considerations and good conscience even where the state is not legally bound." Carroll v.Socony-Vacuum Oil Co.,
Article
"The equal protection of the laws is accorded when all persons similarly situated are accorded `equal protection under the law in the enjoyment of rights belonging to all.'" State ex rel. Brush v. Sixth TaxingDistrict, supra, 200. Consequently, a statute which makes a special exception without basis for its support is unconstitutional. Montgomery v. Branford,
The statute in the present case makes no pretense of being of general application. Regardless of how many persons may have sustained negligent injury similar to the plaintiff's, this statute purports to permit the plaintiff and the plaintiff alone to seek redress. "No enactment creating a preference can withstand constitutional attack if the sole objective of the General Assembly is to grant personal gain or advantage to an individual." State ex rel. Higgins v. Civil Service Commission, supra, 106.
While every proper presumption and intendment must be made in favor of the legislation and it must be sustained unless its invalidity appears beyond reasonable doubt; State v. Bassett,
"Cooley, in Constitutional Limitations, Vol. 2 (8th Ed.) 809, says: `The legislature may suspend the operation of the general laws of the State; but when it does so the suspension must be general, and cannot be made for individual cases or for particular localities; . . . but everyone has a right to demand that he be governed by general rules, and a special statute which, without his consent, singles his case out as one to be regulated by a different law from that which is applied in all similar cases, would not be legitimate legislation, but would be such an arbitrary mandate as is not within the province of free governments.'" Silver v. Silver,
Wheeler's Appeal,
The demurrer is overruled.